Celebrating A Girl Scout Tradition

Thirty years ago, Pam Ashworth was 10 and hawking Girl Scout cookies. Her Fort Lauderdale troop was dedicated; her mother was the troop leader.

She sold them at church, in front of grocery stores and door-to-door with a wagon, even pressuring the men who worked at her father's fire station to buy them. All the time she was a fan of the peanut butter versions, but was still singing the praises of a new cookie that year: Samoas, the vanilla cookies covered with caramel, rolled in coconut and striped with chocolate.

"Samoas are the most popular cookie there is after the Thin Mints," she explained.

This year, as the scouts celebrate the 30th birthday of Samoas, Ashworth is still selling the cookies, this time as a leader of Troop 451, in Plantation, with her 16-year-old daughter, Kelli.

"It's cool that my mom was selling Samoas and now I'm selling them, too," Kelli said. "I love the Girl Scouts. I want to do it when I'm older and have my own troop, too. It's a place where girls can get together and have fun and do service projects."

The scouts will be hawking the cookies for $3.50 a box through Feb. 7 in Palm Beach County and through Feb. 8 in Broward County.

More than 5,600 scouts are expected to sell 690,000 boxes in Broward, while 5,500 scouts should sell an estimated 780,000 boxes in Palm Beach County.

That's fewer than the 830,000 boxes that about 6,700 scouts sold last year in Palm Beach County.

"We've had a pretty big drop in membership because of the hurricanes," said Lisa Johnson, Girl Scouts spokesperson for Palm Beach County, whose region also covers five other counties. "The first and second hurricanes were during prime recruitment time and schools were closed."

So because of this past season's storms, many clubs weren't up and running in time to sell cookies. With fewer girls and fewer cookies, the organization is under pressure to come up with funds to repair $1 million in damage to the Girl Scouts' camp in Jupiter. Thousands of trees were downed, the roof of the lodge flew off, and the wood floor, kitchen and appliances were ruined.

"We have a slogan this year: `Buy One More Box,'" said Johnson.

Gail Lunsford, 67, of Fort Lauderdale, has been selling cookies since she was a girl and only the shortbread version was available at 30 cents a box.

Now, the mother and grandmother of devoted Scouts remembers 1975, when Samoas hit the market. She was a troop leader then. "It was a big seller that first year" for her troop, she said.

"I have people say to me, `When are the Girl Scout cookies coming?' and it's before Christmas," she said. "People like the cookies, but it does support the Girl Scouts."

Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sun-sentinel.com or 954-572-2008.

30 years of Samoas

Girl Scout leaders hope the 30th birthday of Samoas will help sell more cookies this year. The Samoas are vanilla cookies covered with caramel, rolled in coconut and striped with chocolate.

Other cookies available this year are:

Thin Mints, wafer cookies made with peppermint and covered in a chocolate coating;

Do-Si-Dos, oatmeal cookies with peanut butter filling;

Tagalongs, cookies topped with creamy peanut butter and covered in a chocolate coating;